True Power
by Darkened Shadows
Summary: Newton's third law of physics states that any action will create an equal and opposite reaction. With the various and supremely skilled martial artists that pass through Nerima, what kind of criminal could exist there? One night, after avoiding a bad situation with Ranma, Akane encounters a problem too big for her to handle. Warning: Akane rape/nonconsensual sexual assault.
1. The Power of a Promise

**Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and all characters therein are the property of Rumiko Takihashi, meaning not mine. She just makes pretty toys.**

**Author's Note: Okay, I know everyone's waiting for the next chapter of When Love Isn't Enough (or Wrapped in Silk or On the Open Sea or Painful Truths) but the new chapter is being a pain. Besides, this one's been sitting in my skull, begging to be written. It's a little darker than what I normally write, though not unduly so. Be warned: This is an Akane rape fic but I will refrain from being overly graphic. I tried to write something similar a few years ago but I ended up deleting it cuz it got overly convoluted too quickly. At least, for me. Also, I am a rape victim personally so some of the description may come from my own memories. Don't worry - this is not catharsis in fanfiction form, I just wanted to write it and it wouldn't go away. Damned muse!**

* * *

Akane ran through the dark streets of Nerima, marking out a pattern that would have been difficult to follow even if someone had been right behind her. Tears trailed out of her eyes and down her cheeks, twin paths of fire turning cold with the speed of her escape. She could feel the pain of two clashing memories warring within her.

The first was of a promise she had made to Kasumi and Aunt Nodoka the day before. When they'd approached her, she'd been wary and had felt that undertone of being double-teamed. It was a familiar sensation and hindsight told her why they had felt to need to do it but didn't they know she couldn't deny them anything? However, Nodoka had been the only one to speak, exacting a promise out of Akane that she knew she would be hard-pressed to keep. _"I know that my son can be something of a handful and I would never deny you the spirit that makes you who you are, Akane. But we, Kasumi and I, have been talking and we want Ranma to choose you as his wife. I'm sorry, Akane, but I must require that you stop being so violent."_

She had made the promise, all right, but the new situation had made it all the harder. _Easier said than done,_ she thought with a shadow of her normal derision. At least this time her dejection had been strong enough to overpower her anger.

Now, she thought back to the tiramisu in the ceramic dish that she'd handed back to Kasumi before leaving the dojo in her wake. Akane sighed, thinking of the time she'd spent on the Italian dessert and how much effort it had taken her to finally get it just right, get it so that it tasted almost exactly like the ones her favorite restaurant served. Even Kasumi, who could be quite a critic when it came to food or her precious kitchen, had beamed that smile of approval she had been waiting for all her life. It had taken all her power to retrieve the recipe itself from the restaurant in question as it was.

Thank the Gods she had friends that worked there.

Though in years past all her cooking experiments had gone to her father, now they were always reserved for Ranma, the significance of which everyone but him seemed to grasp. Of course, with her record, no one else really wanted her cooking anyway. She had been taking her finished result, something she was proud of herself, out to the dojo when she heard the voices. One Ranma's rich and disrespectful baritone, the other a familiar lilting alto: Ukyo. Because the doors to the dojo were thrown open, she could see that Ukyo was feeding Ranma one of her rare dessert okonomiyakis. Looking down at her own amateur-looking tiramisu, Akane knew that she couldn't compete.

It was the last straw, more than anything else. Promising as she had to her sister and Ranma's mother, she had done some deep meditation that morning in lieu of her morning run in order to attempt to lock the anger away. It was the anger that led to her violent outbursts and that had to be done away with. Though she could feel the fury brimming into her muscles like the effects of opening a shaken bottle, she turned away from the scene without a word and fled her home before her powerful emotions would force her to act differently.

Deep in her mind, Akane accepted the reason why Ranma complimented Ukyo so much, which was the inverse reason why he insulted her so much. Ukyo had masqueraded as a boy for most of her life and Ranma's stream of 'cute' and 'nice' comments in her general direction kept her off-balance, much in the same way that 'uncute' and 'tomboy' kept Akane herself completely off-balance. Maybe it was something of a Genma teaching but she knew that the Anything Goes martial art taught that it was best to keep your opponent as off their game as you could manage.

Did that mean that Ranma thought of real life as potential battleground? Probably.

However, that didn't mean it didn't hurt any less and Akane's go-to reflex when in pain was to retaliate. It wasn't unheard of; she was still a martial artist, after all. So, if she couldn't hurt someone back, her only recourse was to hide, to escape for just a little while. Much like a wounded cat, she just needed to lick her wounds and then she could return home with little having changed.

In this instance, she was glad she had lived in Nerima much longer than Ranma or any of the others and had a more expansive knowledge of its territory. If she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be found. It was just… she usually _wanted_ Ranma to find her. The only person that would just stumble upon her might be Ryoga with his odd sense of direction but even that was quite unlikely.

Finally coming to a stop, Akane realized she was about a mile from home, slightly closer to Tofu-sensei's office than the familiar dojo. She also realized that she was in one of the seedier neighborhoods and was immediately discomforted by the fact. This place was something Americans might refer to as being 'on the wrong side of the tracks'. She was about to turn around and hightail back home when she heard the one thing that would change her mind.

A scream. "Help!"

Her martial artist instincts on full alert, she ran to the sound. It hadn't been too far away and it had been a girl's scream, high-pitched and full of terror. The only bad thing was that this neighborhood wouldn't take notice to such cries of help. If gangs could be found in Nerima, this is where they might be and it would take someone of superior courage – and stupidity – to mess with something like that.

"Girly, just shut it and take your medicine." The voice was rough and gravelly and Akane pinpointed the source to the nearest alleyway, where she turned into in order to take in the scene. The man was big but not the biggest she'd ever seen, dressed in leather pants and a leather vest but little else. He held a girl a few years younger than Akane herself against the brick of the wall and she could see that she already had an abrasion on one of her cheeks and was crying profusely.

So, he liked to beat on little girls, did he?

Without further thought to the situation or her own safety, Akane surged forward and launched a mighty snapkick at the man's temple. The force of it caused him to release the girl and stumble. But only slightly, which was disconcerting. The force of the blow should have knocked him to the ground and pushed him back a few feet, at least.

The girl whimpered and Akane knew automatically that she had been struck dumb with shock. She cast a friendly brown gaze in her direction and whispered a firm command. "Run!" The one word seemed to give the girl, who up close seemed to be even younger than Akane had first surmised, enough sense to flee as quickly as her legs could carry her.

The man righted himself and rolled his neck, causing a slight cracking sound as the vertebrae popped. "What the…?"

"You should pick on someone your own size," Akane intoned sharply, her eyes lit with challenge.

He tilted his head slightly and finally fully faced her, revealing something that sparked fear in the young martial artist. In the hand she hadn't seen, he held a large gun, the metal of it cold and menacing. "Well, little girl's got a bite. You're a little old for my liking but still quite a tasty morsel."

Akane could feel her gorge rise as he eyed her with something both dirty and dark. Before another thought could increase her fear, she rushed him again, meaning to put him down this time. What she didn't realize was that he was prepared for her now.

* * *

"Mm-mm. This is no good," Soun murmured softly as Kasumi padded into the family room with a slice of Akane's successful tiramisu for the Tendo patriarch. The eldest daughter was bursting with pride for her youngest sister – a single successful dish for something as potentially complicated as tiramisu showed that maybe the fog that obscured her cooking ability had finally lifted. However, no one needed to know Akane had made it yet. They could be quite insensitive when it came to her feelings.

"Here's some dessert, Father," Kasumi said softly as she set the small plate in front of him on the table. Her soft voice and the dull clink of the china hitting the wood of the table caught the elder Tendo's attention and he folded the newspaper he had been reading. She noticed it was left open to reveal the article he had been reading. " 'Criminal at Large, Curfew Recommended'?" she read, a question clear in her voice.

"Mm," Soun nodded, taking a bite of the tiramisu as usual. "Good as usual, Kasumi! And Akane's favorite as well! What's the occasion?"

Kasumi frowned at her father's easy distractedness. "I didn't make it. Akane did. She's been perfecting it for a week."

The Tendo father's eyes widened and his face broke into a smile, tears threatening to leak out of his eyes. "Oh, that's wonderful news." He made to stand, ostensibly to find Genma, but Kasumi had other ideas.

"Father," she began again firmly. Soun froze, his eyes wide as he was caught in Kasumi's demanding voice. "The newspaper?" she asked again.

Relaxing marginally, he shot a look at the paper, his eyes roaming over the kanji. "There's an escaped prisoner from Fuchu Prison on the west side of Tokyo. They're recommending but not forcing a curfew, especially for young girls."

Kasumi's brow furrowed slightly. "Why girls?"

Soun's face darkened. "He's a… serial rapist of prepubescent girls." His face twisted further, as if the words put a bad taste on his tongue and he'd hated saying them. But that was the Will of Kasumi. "He's also a master of judo and kenpo."

"Oh dear," Kasumi murmured softly. A martial artist committing such crimes as rape? What was the world coming to? Finally, she stood and returned to the kitchen, functionally to retrieve more tiramisu to take to Ranma but her mind on Akane's recent escape from the Tendo compound altogether. "Oh, and Father?"

Soun looked up at his daughter as he was pushing himself to his feet. "Yes, Kasumi?"

"You will keep Akane's newfound skills to yourself, won't you?"

With a defeated sigh, he slumped back down and unfolded the newspaper again. "Yes, Kasumi."

Passing through the kitchen, Kasumi quickly fetched the other plate of tiramisu and walked briskly to the dojo. A grainy black-and-white photo of the rapist had been situated in the middle of the article and she had felt curiously disturbed at the sight of it. She didn't want to think of the possibility of her sister coming face-to-face with this man but Akane's luck had gone seriously downhill since her engagement to the gender-changing boy that lived under their roof. Afraid that she was unduly worried, she pasted a serene smile on her face and walked through the open doors of the dojo.

She saw immediately the reason for her little sister's earlier dismay as her brown eyes settled on the form of one of Ranma's fiancées. "Miss Kuonji, it is quite late to be visiting." She could hear the reproach in her voice and felt a small voice telling her to kick the boyish girl off their property. After all, after promising Auntie Saotome so fervently, she was sure that Akane hadn't resorted to violence. Besides that, Ranma belonged to the youngest Tendo, not some… okonomiyaki pretender.

Ukyo jumped, startled, and presented Kasumi with an embarrassed smile. "Just talking to my Ranchan."

Kasumi's eyebrow twitched and she silently counted to ten. Though anger was as familiar to her as it was to Akane, a good hostess never showed such emotions. So, she turned to Ranma to quell the rest of the rage. "I have your dessert, Ranma."

The girl looked ready to put forth an argument but Ranma had both a bottomless stomach and zero reason to argue another treat. Another, Kasumi noted idly as she took in the empty Ucchan's box near the boy's feet. She refused to let her lips twist into a scowl but could feel a thread of misdirected anger toward Nodoka. If Akane had never made that promise and hit Ranma instead, she would never had gone running off into the night. While she had no reason to believe that her sister was in danger, there was a stone-like feeling at the bottom of her gut that screamed that something was horribly wrong.

"Hey, what's this? It's really good." Ranma smiled up at the eldest Tendo girl around the dessert in his mouth.

"Tiramisu," Kasumi answered idly. "It's Akane's favorite."

"Oh? I didn't know that."

_Of course you didn't,_ she thought with a vague feeling of distaste. "I find it rather fitting that her first edible dish is also her favorite dessert."

"What?" Ranma looked down at his now empty plate carefully. "You gotta be kidding, right?" He tilted his head and Kasumi blinked, afraid he could see the hard glint in her eyes. "You're not kidding. Why didn't she bring it to me?"

Turning away, Kasumi decided to face her mother's shrine instead. The longer she thought about it, the more she _knew_ something was happening to Akane… but how to put that into words? "She did. I can only assume she saw something she didn't like because she brought the dish back to me and left."

"What do you mean, left?" Ranma asked, surging instantly to his feet. He didn't notice Ukyo's frown and Kasumi took a sick pleasure in the sight when she glimpsed it. "Why didn't she just hit me or something?"

Kasumi sighed, feeling guilty herself. After all, when Nodoka had brought up the promise, it had seemed like such a good idea. But she had forgotten the younger girl's other response to feeling hurt, something she had done when Nabiki's actions still made her quite angry. "She promised your mother she wouldn't."

"What?" he exclaimed. "That's a stupid thing to promise."

The elder girl turned to face him again. "Are you saying you deserve it?"

Ranma instantly sputtered. "What? No!"

Kasumi's face almost drooped slightly before she caught her internal disappointment and buried it away. "Well, I'm certain she'll return soon. She won't stay away long."

"You're worried," Ranma accused softly, his blue eyes searching her face intently.

"I am," she admitted. "There's an escaped criminal on the loose and I have the most horrible feeling."

Ranma turned toward the open dojo doors. "I'll find her." With that, he was gone, his speed making his escape mysteriously instant and leaving Ukyo behind. The girl herself huffed impatiently and left as well, though at a much slower rate. Kasumi frowned, wishing that she had remembered to inform the boy of Akane's impeccable knowledge of Nerima's streets. If she hadn't wanted Ranma to find her, she would not be found until she was ready.


	2. The Power of Will

**A/N: Okay, first off, I'm going to say this chapter might seem a little weak. Oh, well, I slogged through it. Now, I'm sort of past the hard part. Mousse may seem a little OOC and from this point forward, Akane will be more than a little OOC off and on. Thanks for reading and for all the reviews!**

* * *

Akane stumbled back, not having expected the man's ability to stop her dead.

As she reached up to probe her nose, which she could feel was bleeding, she glared angrily at the man, whose arm was still extended and hand was curled into the palm thrust he had used to halt her. It was a strong but simple counterattack and Akane forced her mind to clear so she could examine her opponent. Satisfied that her nose wasn't broken, she settled her weight so that she could easily pounce and looked at his stance.

Despite the man's earlier inadequate footing when he was tormenting the girl, she could see that his feet had slid into a kenpo stance that was suitable for both defense and attack. As long as she avoided his eyes, which portrayed an emotion that made her skin crawl, she could see why her attacks were almost falling flat. She had been fighting him like she used to fight the Hentai Horde, quick and hard attacks meant to put someone down but restraining most of her strength in order to not hurt them too badly. But this man – he had the stance and the muscles and the comfort of the Art – he was trained.

Akane herself had been training in the Anything Goes school for a little over eleven years but this man was much older and could have been trained in martial arts for at least twice that amount of time. He was strong too – it took quite a lot to injure her and her own father hadn't been able to do that much in the last three years. Gulping past the lump of solid fear forming in her throat, she wondered if she could hit him with everything she had. She was so used to pulling her punches – it took only a fraction of her strength to shatter the concrete slats she practiced with and she never wanted to truly hurt someone, not even her so-called rivals.

This was a problem.

"I don't have time to play, girl. I'm in a bit of a hurry." The man smiled a twisted grin of delight and raised the hand that held the gun. Before she could figure out where he was aiming, he squeezed the trigger, forcing her into action.

Darting down and to the side faster than she had ever moved in her life, Akane felt the heavy slug impact her in the shoulder just before pain exploded from the point. If she hadn't been rolling to the ground already, the fiery feeling would have forced her down. It was pain she'd never felt before: sharp and massive and blooming through her body as blood flowed out of the new opening in her body. Even as her vision grayed from the new sensation, she looked at her shoulder, marveling at the amount of arterial blood.

"Should have been a gut shot," the man groused as he closed in on her. "You're faster than you look."

Akane looked up at him, trying to fight through the pain to stand again. Maybe her eyes had questions or maybe he just liked to hear his own voice. As it was, she barely heard his words as she fought her own brain's commands, such as the one that wanted to shut down completely from the blossoming pain.

"I was going to leave you for dead when I was through with you. Well… I suppose I could still." He grinned wider, hefting the large gun in his hand.

A flash of anger pulsed through Akane's body, clearing her cobwebbed vision, and she lashed out blindly, wanting… _needing_ to hit him. Pulling quickly into a sitting position, her small fist impacted him near his waistline at the point where there was little musculature guarding the organs below the skin but not quite low enough to harm his groin, a low blow that she had always considered to be quite off-limits. He immediately doubled over, the strength of her furious punch pushing him back a couple feet, and the gun clattered to the ground. The sound of it skittering on the rough asphalt seemed loud to Akane's ears and she allowed herself a small smile. Even though her strength seemed to be going the same way as her blood, she could at least delay being shot again.

His pain didn't last as long as she would have liked. After maybe two seconds of being doubled over, the man straightened and surged forward, his leather-encased knee rising to meet her jaw in a nasty blow. She reeled and collapsed back into a prone position, feeling both the bruise-inducing pain on her jaw and the sickening way the back of her head impacted the ground. "Bitch!" he growled. "You'll pay for that."

Focusing her mind to pierce past the pain, Akane lifted her head to look at the man, immediately shocked at his current actions. The leather pants had been shoved down to mid-thigh and she found herself looking at something she hadn't expected to see until her wedding night – a fully erect penis. Sure, she had seen Ranma nude in his male form a few times but he had never been… aroused during those moments and as such, his genitalia just seemed like a strange, alien thing situated between his legs. But this… this was much different, more deeply perverted and many more levels of dangerous.

Like a spark of lightning, realization flashed through Akane's mind. He hadn't meant to beat that little girl, he meant to… Oh, Gods, and now he… That's what he meant by, older than he liked. She waited for the anger to return and fill her body with enough energy to escape or fight back but all she could feel was disgust and dismay. He had weakened her and now he intended to take something infinitely precious from her body, preferably by force.

She finally managed to make her body move when he took another step toward her. "No," she said around lips that felt numb. "No, no, no. NO!" she screamed, the force of her cry seeming to tear at her throat.

Even as she scrambled away, trying to regain the strength that was hers but seemed to be failing her now, she knew what she was going for: the gun. If her strength failed her, if this horrible man was actually stronger than her, then she would fall back on the very tactics that he used. The firepower of pistols might be cheating but the possible fallout of being raped could be so much worse. Almost… A couple more feet…

Then, the pain bloomed through her body again and she couldn't hold back a scream. The man had pounced on her, laying his body across hers and pressing one hand down on her wounded shoulder. Instant reaction and her good arm flashed out, punching him hard on the bridge on his nose. The sickening crunch and slight shift of structure under her hand told her that she'd broken his nose but the pain in her shoulder didn't stop. In fact, it seemed to increase.

Looking up, she saw that the man was bleeding profusely from his nose but he still grinned, almost maniacally so. As wild as her punch had been, she felt a dim part of her mind wonder why he hadn't blocked it. She received her answer as he bucked slightly and she felt a new pain, spreading from her nether regions as he forced his penis into her. He had obviously shoved the hem of her dress up and maybe ripped her panties from her body rather than blocking the blow, she could only assume. As if in answer to both her punch and the horrifying feeling of defilement, he reared his arm up and punched her in the center of her abdomen, effectively knocking the air out of her lungs for a moment. Even as she fought her very body and the pressure of his heaviness, he begun some kind of rhythmic thrusting and she could feel her vaginal walls almost trying to fight the invasion.

Akane clenched her eyes closed, trying to block out everything. This was a horrible nightmare, it had to be! Pain pulsed from her shoulder as his hand clenched around the wound. She tried hard not to think about what was happening below her waist. There was quite a lot of pain there as well and the weight of him was a pressure that she truly hated, like he was crushing her. It didn't matter that this situation had already begun unraveling her life as she knew it. She needed to stop him now!

Focusing single-mindedly through the pain, Akane moved her injured arm experimentally to see if he noticed the movement. Fortunately, he didn't seem to; she refused to think of why that was, stubbornly blocking all the sensations that her body was enduring for a later time. She inched her arm upward and stretched, her face turned toward the place where the gun had fallen. _A little more,_ she urged herself. _You can do it, Akane._

Her fingers finally curled around the butt of the gun and she gathered what strength she had left to lift it back to her body. Nausea had finally built up to the point that she could feel the urge to vomit but swallowed it down, forcing herself to maintain her focus. Her uninjured arm joined the struggle and she managed to raise the gun so that it rested against the man's forehead. Panic and alarm rose in her chest – what if he noticed? What if he got away? She couldn't stand the thought that he would do this to some other girl, probably a girl much younger than her.

In the split-second that he began to return his attention to her at the feeling of cold metal pressed against his flesh, Akane squeezed the trigger. As if his skull was nothing more than a fragile melon, she could see bits of it explode and realized numbly that the exit wounds created by this weapon could be quite expansive. However, his face seemed mostly untouched and she watched as his eyes emptied of… everything. After an eternal moment that was actually quite brief, his body slumped into stillness.

Biting back a panicked cry, Akane pushed at him weakly before realizing she would have to try a different tactic. She didn't have enough strength to push him away, mainly because his dead weight was a lot heavier than she expected. However, she was panicked enough and disgusted enough that she could push herself out from under him. She shuddered at the way her vaginal walls slammed back to their normal position and the soreness that attended what she had just endured. With legs that were too weak to hold her up, though they were two of the few uninjured parts of her body, Akane scooted backward to a brick wall near the opening of the alley.

_I killed someone,_ she thought in horror, eyes on the corpse of her attacker. In another beat, the rest of the situation settled on her mind. _I was raped. Oh, Daddy, I'm so sorry._

* * *

Mousse hated this neighborhood.

It wasn't that they didn't tip well, though Shampoo did seem to take considerable affront to that. It was more that the entire area reeked of fear and roads not taken. As a martial artist, he knew that emotions seeped into one's everyday life and this fear, it seemed like everyone in this neighborhood marinated in it. It affected their actions, from the way they would open a door to the furtive glances they gave the open street before slamming the door closed.

When he had approached the neighborhood, still a quarter-kilometer from his destination, he had thought he heard a gunshot. Though his ears had perked slightly at the sound, he ignored it. If Cologne had realized he got sidetracked in the course of a delivery, she would not be as lenient with him as she was with Shampoo. Which was to say, not very.

When he heard another gunshot, closer now that he was just leaving the house with payment in hand, he allowed himself to diverge from his usual path back to the restaurant. Business was slow tonight anyway – the restaurant itself had enough people to keep Shampoo occupied but the deliveries hadn't been coming often enough to keep him clear of Cologne's staff. Maybe a distraction, a reason to exercise his skills, was in order.

He edged around residential buildings, finally coming up on the alley where his acute hearing told him he'd heard the sound of the gunshot. It was so quiet now. Squinting into the darkness, he pushed his glasses up closer to his eyes. There was a… man laying facedown in the middle of the alley, pants halfway down his legs and the back of his skull like a shattered glass globe. A glint of metal brought his attention to a gun, sitting innocently on the broken asphalt.

"Mousse?"

Startled, the Chinese boy turned to face the source of the sound. It was a teenage girl, her face and shoulder marred by large amounts of blood. It took him another moment and movement of settling his glasses close to his face again to identify. When he did, he automatically knelt down, his white robe billowing around him with the movement. "Akane? Did you…?" But certainly not. He didn't think she had the stomach to kill a human being.

"Mousse, can you take me to Doctor Tofu?" Her voice was so small that he looked more closely at her. Akane was never this timid and now, she sounded more unsure than he'd ever heard her.

"Akane, what's wrong?" He stood then, grasping the side of her that didn't seem covered with blood to bring her up with him.

She shook her head firmly. "Have to…" She stumbled, her legs almost buckling beneath her. "Have to go to Doctor Tofu."

"Akane…" he started, his myopic eyes trying desperately to make sense of this scene. After a moment, he decided to leave off the questions. She was covered in blood but that didn't alarm him. Growing up in a warrior village, blood seemed to cover girls after particularly gruesome fights. Was that all this was, though? Some fight gone bad? But with that gun… However, Mousse opted not to follow that line of thought, merely allowing the chaotic details of this situation to settle to the bottom of his mind. "Do you care if I take you by the rooftops?"

Finally, she looked up at him and he could see that her eyes were filled with tears, though they had yet to fall from her eyes. The brown of her irises swam and distorted behind the wall of shining wetness and he felt something in him fall away. Something was seriously wrong, he realized, and there was something else in her eyes. A kind of disjointed determination, he though. With achingly slow movements, she put her arms around his neck and he found that to be answer enough.

When he hopped to the nearest rooftop, he heard her hiss softly when he jostled her body. Resituated his arms so that she would move very little as he leapt through the air, he began marking the path back to the neighborhood that contained sights that were familiar for both of them. While he traveled in a beeling toward Tofu's clinic, he wondered again at Akane's behavior. She was acting severely… off. Words quiet and eyes piercing. He didn't associate those qualities with the youngest Tendo and he felt a very strange feeling, something very similar to his protective instinct of Shampoo.

Though reaching the clinic in question took nearly five minutes, neither spoke in all that time. He set them both on the sidewalk and resumed helping her walk, knocking on the darkened door of Tofu's clinic door. It took him a moment to realize the hand he knocked with had left blood on the door. Apprehensive, he opened his palm, deeply shocked to see it completely soaked with dark red blood. He looked at Akane, remembering that this hand had held her under her thighs.

Was she bleeding from her… vagina?


	3. The Power of Trust

**A/N: Okay, yes, the last chapter was a bit... graphic. Personally, even though it was horrid to write, I didn't think it was overly descriptive but... heh, oops. Here's a new chapter. Hope everybody likes! And also, I always love the reviews I get. Thanks!**

* * *

Ono Tofu was standing in the back office, looking at his disorganized files in dismay, when his ears perked at the knock. Many of the people in this neighborhood knew that he would take any emergency and that his medical skills ranged beyond the chiropractic. Still, though, not many people had the kinds of emergencies that would occur this long after he locked the doors for the night.

Rather than ponder at the oddness of the hour, Tofu reminded himself that there could very well be someone bleeding on his doorstep and took long strides toward the entrance, sliding the door open with practiced ease. At the scene that greeted him, he realized maybe he shouldn't play jokes with fate. His eyes worried behind his glasses, he ushered Mousse and Akane into the clinic and locked the door behind him.

"What happened?" he demanded immediately. He didn't like what he was seeing, his practiced physician's eyes catching little details of Akane's state. The first and most obvious was the bloody hole in her shoulder that seemed to have coagulated enough that blood flowed only sluggishly from the wound. Her nose had bled as well but the structure seemed the same it had always been and the doctor took comfort in the fact that it was likely not broken. However, he noted how one of Mousse's hands was covered with blood and how the Chinese male kept darting his glance between his own appendage and a spot lower on Akane than most good boys should ever look. This, paired with the strangely dull quality of the girl's eyes, painted a very disturbing picture.

"I was shot," Akane said finally, her voice flat and lifeless.

"That much, I can see," Tofu replied, somewhat harsher than he intended. But there was something missing here and his intelligent mind railed at puzzle pieces that refused to fit together.

"And raped." Her voice was softer now and he could hear the slight waver in her voice.

Tofu's eyes widened and his world suddenly narrowed to a pinpoint. Gun ownership and sexual assault weren't unheard of in Japan but instances of either weren't as frequent as in a country as chaotic as, say, the United States. An event where the two were together was shocking. He moved to place a hand on Akane, a gesture to encourage her toward the examination room, but she immediately moved away, the movement both entirely fluid and seemingly involuntary.

So, he realized, her instincts had already started to include all men as enemies. He looked toward Mousse and noticed that she had apparently allowed him to touch her. As could be the case sometimes, assaulted women would choose one man after the trauma and only that person would be allowed to touch her for a while. "I see," he murmured softly.

"I'm sorry, Tofu-sensei," Akane said instantly, her face scrunched in painful self-recrimination. "I didn't mean to. I just…"

He looked into her eyes and smiled gently. "It's okay, Akane. It's perfectly normal. However, I will need to perform both a preliminary and an extensive examination. Between them, you can even bathe in the back." He stepped back from her to increase her personal space. "What about… your attacker?"

Relief flooded his system when that familiar liquid fire lit Akane's eyes briefly. It was good that she wasn't completely lost because of this tragedy; he had read too many case studies where this type of assault could completely shatter a person. "He's dead." Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears, the moisture spilling over onto her cheeks. "I did it with… with the gun."

Tofu blinked, slowly realized that the situation was suddenly more dire than before. What many of her friends tended to forget was that Akane was a martial artist at heart – instantly at someone's side to protect them with a strong sense of the value of life. For her to kill someone, she had to have had no other choice, which made sense considering the amount of blood loss the shoulder wound probably caused. Additionally, taking a human life may have done more to her psyche than the loss of her virginity, something that was achingly precious to one like Akane.

Finally, he stepped around them, leading them by example to the exam room. Once in the room, Akane and Mousse split apart, the girl taking her normal position on the examination table and the boy moving to take some sort of vigil near the door. Before starting on Akane, he looked at Mousse. "You can confirm the death of her attacker?" he asked softly.

Jolting at being noticed, the Chinese teenager looked at Akane. "Was it…?" Wide-eyed, Akane nodded her head quickly. "Yes, he's very dead."

Frowning to himself, Tofu turned back to his patient. "Okay, tell me from the beginning, even the reason why you were out this late to begin with."

"That's not important," she snapped waspishly, though her voice remained low.

_Ranma,_ Tofu realized with a sigh, knowing that boy was very nearly the only person she would protect so blindly and vehemently. "Everything matters," he encouraged in a soft voice. "You don't have to go into detail, just give me an idea." He hoped that by the time she finished recounting the… events of her night, her inherent trust of him would return to an extent that he could help to clean her. His original thought had been to report the incident to the authorities, so that they could handle the man at fault. But with him dead, no one outside of the Tendos needed to know.

Although, knowing the way Nerima's rumor mill turned, this incident would become more than adequate grist within days.

She looked at him, her brown eyes finally free of the dull shroud of shock but full of some kind of fiery determination. As she spoke, he realized that determination was like a wall, holding back all the emotions that would keep her from doing this very thing. In the future, this wall would keep her from shutting down completely but it made him so sad – because it was that wall that hadn't allowed anyone to get close to her in the past. The wall wasn't new but for now, it was useful.

"I made tiramisu. Daisuke works at La Verde in Shinjuku on the weekends and he copied the recipe for me." From years of treating her and participating in many conversations, Tofu was well aware that La Verde was Akane's favorite restaurant and tiramisu her favorite dessert. "It was edible. Ka—My sister said it was actually good. But when I went out to the dojo, Ranma was out there with Ukyo." Her face pinched in a familiar way that was her hurt anger but only for a second, then her expression smoothed into blankness again. "It wasn't anything… perverted, I guess, but I was so…" She sighed softly, her eyes distant for the few seconds that she thought about the moment that had sparked her run into the night.

"You didn't hit him?" the doctor asked softly, a sliver of surprise sneaking into his voice.

She smiled slightly, the expression a dismal shadow of her normal smiles. "I know. Shocking. But I… I promised Aunt Nodoka I would stop." Tofu arched an eyebrow – how was it that a promise to Ranma's mother managed to overpower promises she'd formerly made to her own sister? "So, I didn't. I ran away, admittedly not the best idea." Her limp smile dimmed, leaving her face blank again. "I found myself in one of the bad neighborhoods, the one Daddy's always telling me to stay clear of." Her voice hitched slightly when she referred to her father and the doctor wondered at the reason. "I'd been running in a way so that Ranma wouldn't be able to follow me. When I realized where I was, I was going to turn back but I heard a scream." She swallowed thickly and looked Tofu in the eye, her expression turning dismal. "He had a little girl, maybe 12 years old. He'd already hit her and—and he was going to do to her what he did to me. I hit him hard and he let go of her – she ran – but he took the hit really well, better even than Ranma."

Tofu refrained from biting his lip in consternation and thought about that. Ranma was strong, there was no doubt about that, but she compared this man's strength to her fiancé's own. Whoever her attacker was, it was obvious he had been too strong for her and using tactics – like the handgun – that erased all strength as a factor.

"I meant to put him down but he stopped me with a palm thrust," she continued, gesturing limply at her nose. "Before I could try anything else, he shot me. He said he meant for it to be a stomach wound, so that he could leave me for dead… after but I guess I was fast enough to dodge. I got him to drop the gun but then he…" She faded to a stop, her words bitten off by a shuddering sob. "I can't talk about that part, please."

Tofu nodded quietly. "You shot him then?" She nodded, biting her lip. "You can go on to the back and start bathing. I'll be back to help in a moment."

Akane cringed visibly. "Can't… Can't I just…?"

He shook his head but presented her with his most understanding gaze. "You have several wounds, Akane, and I need to make sure they're properly sterilized and bound. While we're doing that, Mousse will inform your family, won't he?" Tofu turned his gaze on the duck-boy, his eyes shifting from soft to hard as he pinned him with a simple look.

"Yes, sensei," Mousse said softly.

She let out a soft cry and the doctor faced her again to see her holding the hand of her good arm to her mouth. "Do you think…?" She inhaled deeply and started again. "Do you think Daddy will disown me?"

Tofu wanted so badly to appease her, tell her that there was no way in the world that Soun Tendo would disown his baby girl. But the truth was, the Tendo line was old and very traditional – there was still the possibility of it happening. "I don't know, Akane. Why don't you starting cleaning up?" he offered weakly.

Nodding jerkily, Akane stood and maneuvered toward the bathroom at the rear of the clinic. The doctor couldn't help but notice how she walked slowly and carefully, as if she was trying to keep her inner thighs from rubbing together.

"If he does?" Mousse asked, the volume of his voice never rising above a murmur.

Tofu looked at the Chinese teenager, trying to gauge his emotions. The thick lenses of his glasses kept the doctor from seeing anything from the boy's eyes and he could easily read the pinched set of his face. "If that is the case, no Tendo is allowed in my clinic."

* * *

Nabiki gently closed her bedroom door and walked quietly to the kitchen. At first, she'd been a bit leery about Akane's new urge to make tiramisu. After all, hadn't Kasumi been the one to comment during the family trip to La Verde for Akane's birthday about how potentially bad making the dessert could be?

But there hadn't been any clatter. No yelling, no alarm, no quiet admonitions from Kasumi. It had taken some time but the middle Tendo daughter finally decided to emerge from her haven.

She was halfway to the kitchen, her exact position two feet from the hallway telephone, when said phone rang sharply. Sighing, Nabiki glared uselessly at the device before calling out. "I got it!" She then lifted the receiver from its cradle. "Konnichiwa! Tendo residence."

"Nabiki Tendo?" a dry, soft voice crackled from the other side of the line.

"Yeah." She gave the wall an arched eyebrow as if she was looking at the person that spoke to her now, placing one hand on her hip. "Speaking."

"This is Mousse. Of the Chinese Amazons."

A sneaky grin blossomed across Nabiki's face. "Calling to plan your challenges now, eh? I could make some serious yen that way."

Mousse coughed, making a soft choking sound, and then gently cleared his throat. "No, that's not… I'm calling because I'm at Tofu-sensei's clinic with Akane."

"Aww," she cooed softly. "Did Akane-chan bruise your little face?"

"No. Um, I found her when I was out on a delivery, about a mile west of this neighborhood. She'd been shot and raped."

Nabiki blinked, all expression dropping from her face. Akane? Raped? It had to be some kind of… "Mousse, that's a nasty joke to play," she spat into the phone angrily.

"You are correct," he conceded softly, "and I would not be one to play such a joke. I was just told to inform you before I call my elder. The doctor just wanted to tell you one more thing."

She stared at the wall, trying to force her mind to stay focused on the conversation. "What's that?" she snapped.

"If Tendo-san decides to disown her because of… because of this incident, no Tendo is allowed within the clinic walls." That said, she heard a click on the other side of the line, indicating that the Chinese boy had terminated the call.

Nabiki barely felt the phone slip out of her suddenly numb grasp, though part of her mind watched with interest as the device stopping inches from the wood floor, bouncing on its short cord and buzzing softly with the dial tone. This… all of this was wrong. Akane was strong and smart, maybe not Nabiki's level of diabolical but so much stronger than she could ever hope to be. How would she ever be in a situation where the result was her own defilement? This just couldn't be happening.

Suddenly, she heard the front door rush open with enough force to bounce it back against the wall. "Ranma," she murmured with a soft growl. The same part of her mind that had noted the descent of the phone also wondered at this new tone she seemed to possess. Though it also made comments about how she had truly lost control of herself, it was locked away deep underneath the rage that surged through her veins. She ran down the hall and down the stairs, her footing even in the descent, and screamed at him. "This is all your fault!" She wasn't sure how yet that claim fit the current situation but she would figure it out.

It took her several split-moments in time to figure out what was happening through the thick red haze of anger that obscured her senses. _This must be how Akane feels all the time,_ that numb part of her mind commented. However, though Ranma had burst into the house rather abruptly, he looked back at her with worried eyes. Kasumi now stood between her and him, her pose unknowingly mimicking Akane's as she had stood between Ranma and Shinnosuke in Ryugenzawa months before. Nabiki forced herself to a stop, the pinched fury sloughing off her face instantly in the face of her sister-mother.

"Nabiki, what's wrong?" Kasumi asked in her soft, maternal tone.

Suddenly, she couldn't breathe. Her chest felt too tight and how was she supposed to breathe with the pressure bearing down on her like this? "She… she…" Come on, Nabiki, just shove out the words. But if she says it, then it's real; and if it's real, does that mean there actually is a possibility that Daddy might…? _No!_ the calm part of her whispered fervently. _Don't think like that, not yet._ And finally, she manages to say her sister's name. "Akane…"

Quick movements just past her focus and Ranma was suddenly pushing his way into the sisterly bubble where Nabiki harbored awful knowledge and the brown of Kasumi's eyes seemed muddled and guilty. The younger boy grasped her shoulders tightly and pierced the fog around her with his shockingly blue eyes. "Where is Akane?"

She opened her mouth, finally regaining enough strength to really answer, when patterns flew before her mind's eye. Akane was hurt, probably more hurt than she had been in a long time. Ranma would run to her, of course; he always did. But if their father… Nabiki didn't want to think about it but she needed to face reality. If Soun decided that this was too much dishonor to bear, none of them could acknowledge her.

Pushing past both her sister and the young Saotome, she maneuvered her way into the family room, heading straight to her father. His face was hidden behind the newspaper and there was a small plate on the table in front of him, covered with ladyfinger crumbs if her guess was correct. _Guess the tiramisu was edible, after all._

"Daddy! Daddy!" Nabiki skidded to a stop near him and crumpled into a kneeling position instantly. "Akane's hurt."

The newspaper folded immediately and her father pierced her with a searching gaze, his eyes immediately moving from her to Ranma. "What?" he screeched. She could see the tears already building in his eyes but she immediately reached out and shook him. Hysterics was not an option right now.

"Daddy, you have to make a decision. Right now. Akane's been raped and I have to know if you're going to disown her." Silence fell around her like a heavy weight and Nabiki had to refrain from screaming. This was _not_ the reaction she had meant to garner. She didn't look back at Kasumi or Ranma but instinctively knew that their respective looks of guilt and concern had intensified. "Daddy? Answer me."

She watched in amazement and apprehension as all traces of his tears faded from his eyes. "Why would that matter?"

"Because…" Nabiki turned her head away, part of her already accepting the decision she thought he'd made. "Because, if you do, we can't see her."

Soun's body shuddered as he sighed and all at once, Nabiki realized that the tears were still there. He'd just bottled them away. "I could never disown my baby," he murmured in a soft voice. "Where is she, Nabiki?"

Ashamed at the reaction, she wilted against her father, embracing him tightly. "At Tofu's. She's at Tofu-sensei's clinic."


	4. The Power of Fear

**A/N: Hope everyone likes the new chapter! It took me a few days but I got it out. Yay!**

"* *" - speech in Mandarin (Chinese)

* * *

Cologne stared at the receiver in her hand, barely registering the soft dial tone. Her lips slowly puckered into an irritated scowl. The boy was usually not this insolent. Mousse was certainly hard to handle from time to time, what with his refusal to give up Shampoo, but he didn't often disobey her outright.

Steadying herself on her staff, she hung up the phone and moved steadily out of the kitchen. The restaurant was clear of customers, proof of a slow night near closing time. She disappeared out the door, her confidence in the safety of this particular neighborhood clear in the fact that she didn't lock the door behind her. At the very least, he had informed her of his location, which had not served to slake her curiosity or her superiority.

The medical and chiropractic clinic of Ono Tofu.

That alone was odd. Even when the young boy was injured, he preferred to tend to his wounds on his own. Or, in rare instances, for Shampoo to tend to him herself. Though the young doctor had often more than proved himself, none of the Chinese actively sought him out for his abilities or his knowledge.

So then, why was Mousse with Tofu?

"*Stop, elder,*" said the Chinese male in their native Mandarin. He had his palm out and Cologne stopped mere inches from it. Looking up, she realized his glasses were propped on top of his head but his eyes were closed. It took the merest moment for her to discover that he was relying on his other senses, which were much sharper, to see her.

"*Mu Tsu, what is this insolence?*" Tilting her head at him, she sat very still, perfectly balanced on her staff.

"*You will not disturb her. She has already been through enough this night.*"

"*Her? Who are you talking about? I had to send Xian Pu out on the delivery for which you refused to return!*" Cologne could feel her agitation getting the best of her but it had a tendency to do that when she was faced with Mousse's ignorance.

"*Akane Tendo.*" He opened his eyes as sorrow etched itself across his face.

Cologne sneered slightly. "*The young Tendo girl is none of your concern.*"

"*She was defiled by a man with a handgun!*" he spat out, his green eyes lit with indignant fire.

Her mouth open ready to snipe at him again, Cologne felt the breath wither out of her. Out of all the Tendo daughters, Akane was the one she thought least likely to be in such a situation. She was a warrior, strong and spirited, and that made her somewhat worthy in Cologne's eyes even if she couldn't show such favor for Shampoo to witness.

She was one of the few elders of the Nujie zu Amazon village to have witnessed their shortage to such incidents. The law stated that if you were defeated by a man, which was not quite as uncommon as she had allowed the young Saotome boy to think it was, you had to marry him. However, oftentimes the circumstances involved with such defeat were such that even the brave women of her village would rather be shunned than bring that type of man into their life, not to mention the village. Ranma was the first man in almost ten years to defeat an Amazon warrior that wasn't completely ruthless and amoral.

"*She was raped?*" Cologne clarified in a soft voice.

Mousse arched an eyebrow, his eyes glittering with suspicion. "*You feel… concern?*"

Her eye twitched slightly at the vague jab at her own inhumanity. She was a woman, she did feel for the girl. Of course, she realized with a flash of retrospection, if Shampoo had been here in her place, she would have likely belittled the Tendo warrior for her predicament and only wondered how it would affect her relationship with Ranma. "*I am human,*" she reminded the boy. "*I do feel.*"

He scoffed softly and said something out of the side of his mouth, something that sounded like "*Could have fooled me…*" However, she didn't move to take offense; this entire situation was bad enough without her feeling the need to bring more conflict to bear.

"*Am I the reason you are holding vigil at the clinic?*" The question was meant to be rhetorical, for she thought he knew she would investigate when he'd refused to give his reasons over the phone. She was quite flummoxed when he shook his head in answer to the question.

"Granny!" The sound of Ranma's voice was harsh, tempered by worry and agitation as it was. "What are you doing here?"

"*I'm protected her from them. In case of disownment,*" he clarified after a moment.

Cologne looked from Ranma to Mousse and back again. A stretch of her senses informed her that the Tendos were trailing the young Saotome by quite the distance but that they would arrive soon enough. Ignoring Ranma for the time, as he had no bearing on her being in his presence for once, she looked back at her charge. "*Why would they be here if they had?*"

Mousse shrugged his shoulders limply, the movement barely discernible through his robes. "*They obviously care about her. Ranma claims to despise her but will protect her from any and all danger.*" Cologne curled her lips slightly at that. It didn't take all her years of life to know who it was the boy would eventually choose. "*I guess it would be too painful to see them if she was to be disowned right after… what happened. I can't pretend to know their reasons.*"

Cologne sighed and finally asked the last question that burned at the edges of her mind. "*Why are you doing this, Mu Tsu? What have you to gain from this?*"

He ducked his head slightly but she could see the feeling of purpose in his eyes. "*She trusts me. Right after she was assaulted and paid him back in kind, she trusted me to bring her to the doctor. I feel honor-bound to protect her.*"

Nodding slightly, Cologne tilted on her staff, fully intending to return to the restaurant and her Japanese home. Then, something he said lodged in her mind, refusing her freedom of movement. "*Wait, what? Do you mean to say that she…?*"

Mousse pressed his lips together and nodded to the affirmative once. "*Akane Tendo killed her attacker.*" The way he said it, she could almost hear a painful kind of pride in his voice.

"*She is much stronger than I gave her credit for.*" She caught his arched eyebrow and snorted softly, knowing he still didn't believe her respect for the girl. "*On the inside, where it matters. And it is that strong spirit that will help her through this.*"

* * *

Akane laid on her right side on the examination table once again, her knees curled up to her chest. Her wounded shoulder was treated and bandaged but it still ached even around the pressure points the doctor had applied to alleviate pain. She turned over a small jar of salve in her hand, her world shrunk down to that one object.

She hadn't spoken since she finished telling Tofu-sensei what had happened. It felt like as long as she kept her voice locked away, the reality of the situation was far away. She was relatively sure her father wouldn't disown her but then again, two years ago, she would have sworn there was no way her father would force her into an arranged marriage, either.

Coming to a somewhat horrid if almost soothing realization, Akane laughed loudly, the sound bitter and hollow. She was almost certain that she wouldn't have to marry Ranma now.

Tofu peered into the exam room instantly, his bespectacled eyes wide. "Akane?"

She looked up at him, reading the questions on his face very clearly. Clearing her throat softly, she forced herself to speak. "I just thought of something."

His movements a little jerky, he surged into the room fluidly and took a seat near her. She saw how his eyes moved over her body, checking and rechecking her status, and knew that when he narrowed his eyes, he felt some negative emotion. Disappointment? Anger, maybe? "What is it?"

She laughed again softly. "I don't have to be engaged anymore. After all this time…" She trailed off as her throat closed, emotions blocking any words she might have spoken.

Tofu chuckled in echo to her laugh. She knew he was trying to remain positive for her sake. "Well, isn't that good? You've always said that… Akane?"

She could feel the tears rolling down her face. It had been less than two years but Ranma already felt like this integral part of her life, like her life would just be empty and hollow without him. Of course, the arrangement would still be on and he would be paired to Nabiki or Kasumi. She would have to watch her father force him to someone that wasn't her and she would have to do it while she was fighting herself to endure every day, just like she was fighting to endure this night.

That is, if she wasn't disowned. Otherwise, she would just have to imagine it.

It wasn't fair! Putting her own personal feelings aside, this wasn't fair to her sisters. She was the martial artist; she was the one that was supposed to make the sacrifices, even if she didn't always like the fact all the time. Kasumi was supposed to end up with Tofu-sensei and Nabiki was supposed to end up being the ruthless CEO of some massive conglomerate. They weren't supposed to inherit the dojo – what would they do with it, anyway? – and they definitely didn't deserve to deal with the fiancée crisis. There were times when her life was at risk because of her relationship with Ranma and there was no way—

"Akane!"

Her thought was cut short by Ranma's call when he entered the clinic. Within moments, he was in the room with her. He came toward her with a clear intent to hold – hug, maybe? Or check out her injuries? – but she was on the far end of the room before he even reached the table. She wasn't sure if this new involuntary reflex was a good or bad thing. Her mind settled to the side of good when Kasumi entered the room and Tofu's eyes immediately glazed over.

Pressing herself against the wall, she looked into Ranma's sad blue eyes but at least he had stopped coming toward her. She sighed softly, trying to apologize with her eyes, but winced slightly when a twinge echoed through her body, its epicenter deep between her legs. At the feeling, a flash of memory arced across her mind's eye and she unleashed an unwitting sob.

"Akane?" Nabiki took a step toward her little sister, her brown eyes swimming with emotion.

"Don't touch me!" she bit off suddenly, panic clear in her tone. They shouldn't have to touch her. She felt like she was covered in filth and sorrow, a feeling that had intensified with their arrival. She wondered how many baths it would take before that feeling would fade.

Just as Ranma had when she departed from him, the rest of her family stood very still, the tension of the moment filling the room. It gave her time to look at her family, a hollow feeling in her chest causing her to wonder if it would be the last time. Nabiki's face was rabid with emotion, something she hadn't witnessed for a long time, not since she'd gotten angry at their father and refused to continue training. Kasumi was silent and her face was pinched into lines of sorrow and guilt, though she still managed to be utterly beautiful in that turmoil. Her father's face was like stone, blank and emotionless while tears rolled down his cheeks unchecked. She wasn't entirely sure how to take that. Lastly, there was Ranma, his face warring between rage and concern, his fists clenched at his sides. Would he be angry at her for killing her attacker, stealing his chance to restore what little honor she had left? More importantly, did he yet understand what this meant, her virginity forcefully taken by a man that had meant to see her dead?

There was a clatter, interrupting her despairing reverie, and Akane looked past her family to see Mousse bumbling back into the clinic waiting room. When he realized her situation, tension too thick to be real and her very specific distance between herself and everyone else, he hurried into the exam room, pushing gently past them. "Akane-san?" he asked softly.

She looked into his green eyes, her sorrow too massive to bear. Her throat had closed up again and her mind refused to let her speak. She wanted to ask him about what her family decided so badly, since it was too difficult to look her father in the eyes, but she was having problems forcing the words past her lips.

His face melting into sad sympathy, he walked closer to her, his pace slow and measured. It was obvious that he felt her trust in him could flee at any moment and he didn't want to take that away from her. "He didn't disown you, Akane. Everything's fi—" He stopped, his face scrunching slightly as he looked like he was cursing himself for his words. "Everything will get better."

Akane looked past Mousse, who was now only a few feet from her, to her father. "Really?" she murmured finally. "I can go home?" She had been preparing herself mentally for the worst so hard that it was a little unreal to not have it come true.

Soun nodded and Akane finally got it. He didn't trust himself to speak or to even allow himself to emote at all. It was hard, she thought, to be the victim but how much harder was it to be the people around the victim and know there was nothing you can do to help?

Shaking her head of the thoughts, she knew this to be the mental wanderings of the shell-shocked. She knew that as badly as she had been reacting earlier, the next few days might only be worse. "Can you come too?"

Mousse sighed softly, his eyes a picture of an internal battle. "Akane-san, I'm sure you'll be fine without me there."

"Please, Mousse?"

He inclined his head slightly. "I'll speak to Cologne."

Finally, her face relaxed and she could feel her lips almost pull into a smile. "Thanks, Mousse."

"Why do you trust him and not me?" Ranma asked suddenly. She realized that he must have taken all he could take. She couldn't blame him, not for his tone or for whatever emotions he might be feeling.

"I don't know," she murmured softly, avoiding looking at him directly as she answered him. The truth was that she did sort of know but it wasn't something she could say. She knew that Mousse would never hurt her – what reason did he have to even try? His life and heart were tied so irrevocably to Shampoo that he was the only man that wasn't her father or Tofu-sensei that had no ulterior motives when it came to her. Sure, there had been a few kidnappings but that had much less to do with her than it did Ranma. The young Saotome boy, on the other hand… well, suffice it to say that she trusted him with her life but not her heart. He had hurt her too many times unintentionally. Keeping herself separate from him now would ultimately make the time when he would turn away from her hurt just that much less.

For it was true, he would turn away from her. What did she have to offer him now?

In an effort to break the tension, Mousse cleared his throat softly and pointed out the small jar of salve that Akane didn't realize she still clutched in her hand. "So, Tofu-sensei gave you some ointment? Is it for your shoulder?"

"No," she responded flatly.

"Then where…?" He trailed off as she managed to arch an eyebrow at him. "Oh! Okay. That's a… thing you'll do on your own?"

"Wait!" Ranma said suddenly. She watched as his eyes become sharp and zeroed in on the bandage that could be seen through the bloody hole in her uniform. "What happened to your shoulder?"

She could hear the sound of the handgun all over again and feeling the phantom pain of the bullet ripping through her flesh. "He had a gun." That said, her throat closed up again, the effect of the memories just a little more than her mind wanted to take at the moment.

Sensing her disturbance, Mousse laid a gentle hand on her good shoulder and proceeded to lead them out of the clinic. Akane looked back at Tofu, who was still a little dazed, and then forward to the Chinese boy. He walked in front of her but matched her pace, keeping her close, and she smiled gently. Mousse was a protector, it seemed. She hoped his obligations to his fellow Amazons wouldn't rip him away when she needed that sense of protection the most.


End file.
